Goinghometime

So our campaign on the Esperanza has come to an end and we're slowly making our way back towards Hobart, Tasmania. For two weeks, we've stayed on the tail of the Nisshin Maru, the Japanese whaling fleet's factory ship as they were running at full speed. During that time, there has been no whaling and in many respects this has been a resounding success for Greenpeace. This expedition has managed to prevent the Japanese from killing whales for longer than any other trip to the Southern Ocean before, but it is with mixed feelings that I write these lines. Their strategy was to lead us around in circles, half way up towards South Africa, then back down to the ice, then a bit East, then North, then West again until we ran out of fuel reserves and had to turn towards the nearest port. Our guess is that given the international scrutiny over their controversial whaling programme, the thing they wanted to avoid the most is the publication of pictures and video of what their 'lethal research' really looks like - and they have managed just that.

Thus this trip has not been at all what I or most other people on board have expected: we didn't see any whaling and didn't do any actions apart from one intermezzo when one of our inflatables drove between the Nisshin Maru and a supply ship. The aim was to prevent them from refuelling at sea and it did make for dramatic pictures - however, they did refuel in the end, offloaded the whale meat they had already processed and then carried on running. What has amazed me the most is the level of media coverage and public debate about whaling - both around the world as well as in Japan, where this campaign ultimately needs to be won to end the slaughter in the Southern Ocean for good.

I didn't get the pictures that I wanted to get, but it would feel odd to *want* to see whales being harpooned and thus I am glad that it turned out as it did. Instead, I had the amazing experience of being on an inflatable next to a whole school of Humpback whales feeding, I've seen spectacular icebergs, sunsets and other moments which will stay with me forever, and that is a good thing. Greenpeace has decided to publish my impressions of the Antarctic in an audio-visual slideshow which you can find here - some of my pictures have made it onto the covers and double-pages of major newspapers, magazines and websites. That in itself is gratifying, although I do wish that we'd had more time to follow the whalers, more time in the ice, more chances of observing whales, more icebergs to look at, just more of everything, really. I guess that the old photographer cliché of 'one more' is true in my case - what I did manage to get is just not enough, ever. For the short time that we were next to the Japanese ships, we had some fun dodging their water cannons, escaping out of the path of the hunter ships as they tried to run us over at high speed, and still managed to get the photos and video that we needed to publicise our cause. It's been an interesting encounter, but sadly the only real encounter with them.

But anyway - swiftly moving on - we are now heading northeast towards Hobart, Tasmania and are due to arrive next Sunday. We will see land for the first time this year, after about 45 days at sea, and for most of us almost 3 1/2 months after joining the ship in Korea. Now that seems such a long time ago, and the journey behind us has taken us from Korea to Taiwan, then back north to the southern coast of Japan, then through the Pacific down to New Zealand, from there along the Antarctic ice shelf, then half way up towards South Africa, then back into the ice and finally to Hobart on the southern tip of Australia. We have covered nearly 20,000 nautical miles, weathered two Typhoons and several storms, rolled and slammed with the waves, suffered in the tropical heat of the Equator and shivered from the cold of Antarctica. In short, it's been a long voyage, we are all tired and I am glad it's almost over.